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@Morello, can you explain the design philosophy used for nerfing champions?

NasusUnsure - might have fatal flaws, might just be because overtuned metagolems.

WarwickActually a pretty good jungler here - not too worried.

PoppyBlue Yordle needs rework badly

TryndamereA little on the synergy problem, but mostly this is about melee AD. Tryn's kit would e most likely to be good if melee AD were usable.

KarmaBeing reworked

Ashe Unsure. Might need a bit of love, but not a rework.

Jarvan IVWhoa, this guy's a beast right now. I think he has some design flaws, though.

FiddlesticksGood jungler now for something different.

VeigarGood at being a burst mage, and has 2 ults (R and W). I don't think he's as bad as people make him out to be.

TristanaLikely needs something, unsure though.

SionNeeds rework.

Sion does not need a rework. He's perefect the way he is. He's either a mobile roaming burst ganker or a late game killing machine. He's one of the few champions that have different viable build paths and even though neither of them are very good right now, they could be. Homeguard on AP sion for example can make him roam a lot faster than before and that would be so strong if wards weren't so overpowered right now. AD sion paired with the new cleanse items is one of the only few melee champions that actually can go straight damage.

Nasus The reason Nasus isn't good is the same as why AD sion isn't good. The whole "Farming for lategame" thing isn't really an option when you lose every lane. His W is a god like ability and an AD carry without a way to cleanse its worst nightmare.

Poppy Why does poppy need a rework? She does what she has always done, Kill people if she gets to farm. Same issue as with Nasus and Sion, you are to weak in lane to effectively farm. You could put her in the jungle, but the gold isn't nearly enough. A hand of midas would be what she needed but that's not going to happen.

Melee carries In dota, when you finally get your battlefury you enter farm-mode and then you'll melt faces. In league, there isn't enough farm. It's as easy for a ranged carry to farm a lane as it is for a melee carry with tiamat. It's just a matter of seconds. The jungle in league of legends isn't made to give gold. This is a problem because the only advantage left for melee carries is damage and that's ignored because there is no BKB to make them usable against CC-heavy teams. If you could send your jungler into the lanes to make plays while the carry took over the jungle to farm and push the top lane he could get a good gold advantage over the ranged carries who simply can't farm fast enough. But the jungle goes empty. Two camps are important buffs needed by your team and the three others give insignificant gold compared to their re-spawn time.

This is an honest issue, if you build a tiamat you don't have enough things to farm. You can only farm one lane at the time and since the map is so small it's so easy to stop you, especially when there are no real blink champions. AM can farm wherever he wants because if someone comes he jumps into the forest. In league there is no blink and there is no forest. Instead you put the dashes on the bruisers and the real farm value into gold items.

As a champion with tiamat, you can only farm one lane and it's risky. Having to go from wolves, to wraiths and golems isn't effective enough. Ranged carries have 1. More mobility. 2. Same farm capability. 3. More range (Less CC on them) and 4. Safer laning. In dota melee carries have stuff to counter these things. Dodge, Chronosphere, Blinks, BKB, Illusions and Stealth.

It's not about items, Morello, There is decent enough itemization for melee carries but there are no champions fit for it. The only champions close to it are Olaf, Poppy and Fiora. Well, No, There isn't enough itemization actually. There is no stout shield. There is no way for a melee champion to sustain against a ranged champion. All you get is kill lanes in bot with melee champions, there is no way for a melee champion to farm. You get harassed way to much. Dorans Shield might seem like a viable option but then you get no pots while the enemy has lifesteal from their dorans blade.

You need to make more melee champions without CC and more focus on damage. All we have is Fiora and Yi in that regard with Fiora being the one that actually can be usable, sometimes. She can avoid CC with her ult, Yi get's stunned and dies. But after fioras ult ends she also dies because she has no way to get out.

Jumps and dashes aren't only for bruisers, ranged carries and assassins.
Yi isn't tanky enough since there is no dodge. Even if there is no CC on the enemy team the AD carry will two shot him.

Tankyness is only a trouble if paired with CC. Imagine a Mundo that didn't get damage for free on E and W. Imagine a mundo that needed to farm to get his damage but still had high health and armor values so that he could sustain in lanes and not get oneshot by the AD carries.

Honestly, if Olaf had a blink he'd be good as a melee carry because he wouldn't get kited. Olaf is only good when his ghost is up but that won't cut it if he isn't tanky. The ranged carry will just flash backwards and get free damage and since he isn't tanky he dies from this damage. If he could blink (TWICE because enemy flash) it wouldn't be a problem. If CC had longer cd but lasted longer, then Yi would be a decent melee carry because he could wait for the enemy CC to be used but with champions such as Riven, Irelia and Udyr you'll be stunned regardless because they all have close to 0 cooldowns.

Here are a few directives:- Make farming effective for melee champions. There isn't enough to kill.
If you build a tiamat you can farm faster but there isn't enough farm on the map to go with it. - Give us a dorans shield for carries. Make it more effective on melee champions.
There is no way for poppy, for example, to survive in a 2v2 bot lane situation since the ranged harass is to strong.- Give us higher tankyness on melee champions but less or no CC.
Melee champions need to survive longer but in order to actually become carries their damage needs to scale with items and they shouldn't be effective without them.
We wan't a carry. Not a jax or a xin zhao. Give us a bash instead of a stun or slow. - Give us a blink to cope with enemy flash and a way to escape.
A ranged carry can simply flash backwards and get free damage on you. There is no way to safely farm the lanes alone without blinks, tp scrolls or proper trees. - Give us real ilussions. Why are you afraid of microing? This is a competetive video game - Skill is to be required.
Some heros in dota use illusions to deal their damage. This is a good way to avoid BKB in league if only riot wouldn't be so scared of proper ilussions. - Let us stack the jungle camps.
To give the melee champions something to farm with their tiamats.
- Make the map bigger.
To room more jungle creeps.
- Give us dodge and mana-burn.
RNG is to be high risk, high reward and nothing else. There should be a way for a melee carry to kill a caster like veigar.
- Give us uphill to ease turteling and stop snowballing.
You shouldn't have to pick Anivia to be able to turtle.

Oh, ignorning the whole melee carries deal, here's another directive. - Stop reworking champions.
Make new ones and do them right.
Sion has his niche, Poppy has hers. Not everything has to be used competitively to be fine. Sion can be played more than effectively in a solo queue game but not in a competitive match.
Karma is great at diving bot lane and abusing her lane.
Honestly, Look at the katarina rework. What a joke, Remove a tactical ability and replace it with a straightforward nuke. Sure it made her better but all you did was evade the problem.
You are looking at it like this: "How can I make this champion fit the meta" instead of trying to provide an alternative way of playing the game. Right now all you have in competitive play is -Push fast and win- and -Wait outside baron for 50 minutes-. Poke comps? No, You ****ed GP. You ****ed Nidalee and now with homeguard, it's basically pointless when you reach their base. Lategame comps? Enjoy getting your base destroyed. The only turtle champion in the game is Anivia.

Jax is a fighter, and the distinction is the tools we let him have - things like a stun and beefiness (as well as non-DPS build paths that make sense) make him a fighter. I'm actually worried that by making those guys so good, we can't make glass cannon melee good.

Don't you think that the overall level of tanky-ness on characters at the end of the game (even on ADC's who are required to have a GA built by mid-late game) has already put an end to glass cannon melee champions?

Being able to get back up after they have died really puts a damper on their usefulness in overall teamplay. I am not saying sweeping changed need to be made as of right now, but isn't it in the best interest of champions like Fiora (and future/previous champions of her kind) to receive a small rework to perform on the same level as Jax/Rengar/Irelia?

Poppy Why does poppy need a rework? She does what she has always done, Kill people if she gets to farm. Same issue as with Nasus and Sion, you are to weak in lane to effectively farm. You could put her in the jungle, but the gold isn't nearly enough. A hand of midas would be what she needed but that's not going to happen.
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if you deny poppy from farming and especially from getting kills then she is pretty much useless. she is 100% dependant on items, especially her first item triforce. if u see her in champ select then it is to easy to just pick olaf or teemo and reck her from doing anything.

her late game is sooo good, but her early game is hell, even worse if u have hard counters like teemo or olaf in lane.

I've been seeing an uproar of Nidalee no doubt to the recent appearance update, but Nidalee AP is dramatically overpowered, Mana Regen and spamming from the fog like some kind of Xerath is not fun. I remember Rengar was a lot like her burst, the only difference was, he couldn't do that once per 6 seconds. Her Q needs serious rework, maybe increased CD, reduced damage max range. Think about it.

I have read quite a bit through this thread and you have been asked about many champions Morello, but what are your thoughts about Syndra?

I know win rates don't mean everything, especially on a complicated and/or high skillcap champion, but on Syndra the rates have been absolutely abysmal consistently, only rivaled by the freshly nerfed Diana and Rengar. Her win rates day after day hover between 38% and 42%.

I feel that like Ashe her passive is a problem. Her passive pretty much forces you to max Q first, it feels more like a punishment than a passive advantage. Her entire kit still feels slow and clunky, and is still buggy. I don't think it would be too crazy or unreasonable to let the passive scale level per level with the skills rather than be all at once at level 5. I'd go as far as to say that it wouldn't even be crazy to just make her skills like that and give her an entirely new passive, yes I mean add her old passive onto her current skills as a buff (in a scaling form) and add another passive. I'd bet her win rates would still be lower than 50% consistently unless the new passive was OP.

On the topic of bugs, not too long ago I reported that her ult very often causes the screen to jerk back and forth for several seconds. This has happened in almost every game I've played as her. I never got a response after reporting it.

A simple suggestion to make her kit feel less clunky would be to let the Q be pushed by E while it's forming. In her current state Syndra's Q is canceled if you cast it then rapidly use E. I'm not sure if that's intentional or an oversight, I believe in the worst case scenario the Q should still form and the E should just whiff over it, but allowing it to push a forming Q would be a welcomed change considering the state Syndra is in.

Morello I have a question for you. I would like to know what motivated the team to nerf Teemo. The reason why I'm curious is because he was never FOTM, never picked in championships for a while(if ever) and also never banned(or rarely). What made you murder that little yordle?

Morello I have a question for you. I would like to know what motivated the team to nerf Teemo. The reason why I'm curious is because he was never FOTM, never picked in championships for a while(if ever) and also never banned(or rarely). What made you murder that little yordle?

Have you played with Liandry's Torment on an AP/AS teemo? With Runaan's Hurricane?

The damage was and still is broken. One shroom will do a load of damage, along with the Liandry proc, and can kill you because of the low CD he can spam them with. They nerfed him because without an early advantage for the enemy, Teemo would roll any lane he went up against.

Since this thread is getting a lot of balance love, I thought I'd ask here about the two things I'm currently concerned about:

Nami: I love her kit, I think her kit makes sense, she's sona with a slightly stronger heal, and CC instead of burst, not to say that she doesn't have damage output. But boy does she have a lot of cc. And unlike cho's rupture its fairly easy to land with the aid of ebb and flow.

I know she's a new champ, so balance is always going to be hard, but part of the problem is that given its a knock up, it can't be affected by tenacity.

So question: Do you think knock ups being immune to tenacity is a core part of the skill?

Because personally I think it makes balancing the skills harder, and if they are to be immune, shouldn't they have some inherent difficulty in the skill that makes up for the benefit?